Q. Coach,
the normal trend is to have the offensive coordinator in the booth and the
defensive coordinator
on the sideline. Why is that so? And what are the advantages and disadvantages
of being on the sideline
as a defensive coordinator?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, that's kind of the trend. I think each head coach wants their
coordinators to kind of look
their players in the eye during the game and get a feel for the tempo of the
game. You spend all days
with those guys, you practice with those guys, they hear your voice, so it kind
of makes it convenient
if there's adjustments during the game, you've got those guys down there and
the coordinators are able to
look their players in the eye. It's very important to me to be able to see
those guys during the game, and I
think it goes twofold back and forth.

Disadvantage
of being down is maybe seeing everything. There's times when you're watching
the video and
the camera shot is from upstairs. You rely on information from other coaches.
You don't get to see it like
you do in the film room. You can't see as well from a level playing field as
you can from up top.

Q. Damion,
the Notre Dame offensive coordinator said watching cut?ups of the defense from

Alabama play
snaps that are 3rd and 7 or more is depressing to him. What do you think, what
about Alabama's
defense do you think will lead him to think that or say that?

DAMION
SQUARE: I don't know. We've played a few games where we had a whole bunch of snaps we
played in the game. We're a well?conditioned team, prepared to fly out of
formation as we have to play,
whatever is required for us about that game.

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, I think any offensive coordinator you ask in the country if they had to
play 3rd and 7 or
more, they're not going to be real fired up about it because it's the law of averages, you're not going to get
as many from 3rd and 7 or more. If we can get them in long yardage situations,
it's an advantage.
Their goal is to not be in 3rd and 7 or more.

So we try to
mix it up, pressure and covering in 3rd and 7?plus, but teams have had success against us
in 3rd and long, and it'll be a challenge for us because the quarterback is
such a good athlete.

Q. For two
championships now being with Nick, what have you learned from him? And how much of it is
your call as far as the play calling and the design of the defense?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, I'll tell you this: I have become who I've become as a coach from working for Coach
Saban. He does an outstanding job of managing our organization. There is nobody
I could put him up
against anybody in the country. His ability to facilitate, that's great. He
helps game planning on defense,
he's a great mind in the room.

Obviously
the play calling comes to me, and I call all the defenses. I have ever since
I've been the coordinator,
and that's just the way it is in our system. He's able to give input during the
game, as well as the other
coaches. Jeremy Pruitt, who is leaving us, has done a great job helping me with
information. But at the end
of the day, somebody has got to be the guy to make the call, and that's usually
my responsibility.

Q. I hope
you can indulge me here for a minute, Notre Dame uses three backs, so when I
say "Theo
Riddick" to you as a runner, what jumps into your mind first?

KIRBY SMART:
One?step quickness, explosiveness, great receiver.

Q. Cierre
Wood?

KIRBY SMART:
Speed.

Q. Robert
Atkinson III.

KIRBY SMART:
Speed. Them two dudes are fast. They are really fast. We recruited Atkinson, so we knew
that, and the other guy is just as fast. Riddick is probably quicker than the
other two. Great one?step
quickness, the ability to make you miss, good stiff arm. Didn't think a former receiver would run with that
much power, but he does run with power. They're really good backs.

Q. When you
game plan and it's not one guy, does that affect you at all?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, you try to find tendencies, but as we do with anybody we play -- LSU last year, they
had four back. So you try to say, what do they run with guy, run this guy? When
you bring Notre Dame down,
they run a lot of the same plays with the same backs, so there's not a true
tendency per se unless you
get to bead on one during the game. Some guys are better outside runners than
inside runners.
They run all the same plays with each one of them. So they don't give you a
tendency, you look at another area
and try to focus there.

Q. Just
wanted to ask you, what are the challenges in preparing for a tight end like
Tyler Eifert who is so
versatile and can be used in so many different ways on the offense?

KIRBY SMART:
A lot of challenges. That's what we're experiencing now because we haven't faced a
tight end with this much talent. The guy is a special player. People don't give
this kid enough credit for his
blocking ability. He blocks with great toughness and effort. He really forces
you to play different defensively
because he's so multiple. And they do a great job as an offensive staff of
managing their players and
using their skill players in the right way. I mean, they put he and Riddick on
the same side, makes it
hard to cover, they put them opposite and empty. They do a great job with what
they do of getting No.
80 the ball.

It forces
you to do things that you're not used to doing. You can't cheat the system and
lean to one guy when
they've got two guys out there like Eifert and Riddick and the wideouts. They
do a really good job.

Q. When you
break down everything that Notre Dame has done this year, as I imagine you have once or
twice, does Golson even resemble the same player now as he was Navy, Purdue,
that sort of thing in
September? Did you notice a lot of growth?

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, he plays with a lot more confidence, a lot more skill, more decision
making. They've
allowed him to do more, more flexibility in the system, in the scheme. He's
grown a lot. I can only imagine in
the last 35 days however many it's been, they're going to let him do some more.
We expect that. He's a
great player, very talented.

Q. Question
for both you guys: What did you learn about what a quarterback who can extend plays can do
in a facing Mandell that might help in facing Everett?

DAMION
SQUARE: That's a great weapon for any team. A quarterback like that make them
right for anything
that he calls. He can call a play that's probably busted, and then the
quarterback can scramble around for
five seconds and create things and create havoc for our defense. So as a
defensive lineman you've got
to rush in the right lanes and have communications with what kind of coverage
on the back end and know how
to rush and how to keep the quarterback contained, so that receivers won't be
running for an extended
time on our DBs. So we have to do a great job up front containing a guy like
that, because that is
great for our offense to have a guy like that in our backfield that can make a
play right when it was wrong.

KIRBY SMART:
I agree exactly with what Damion said. Extended plays are how they've made a lot of big
plays. You look at their scramble reel there's a lot of plays that a guy has
really great arm talent because he
can throw one side of the field to the other. I can see in my mind three plays
we watched over and over, he
scrambles to his right, throws it all the way across the field to his left to a
wide open received where a guy
just lost him. They had him covered and they lost him. To that kid's credit
that creates a different
angle of the offense that's hard to prepare for. It's hard to simulate that,
simulate a play that extends that
long. You can't do it, you really can't. You just play with great effort and
great discipline and do your job
as a defense.

Q. Kirby,
Nick acknowledges that you're only in the 3?4 defense about 20 percent of the
time. Why do you
continue to call that the regular base defense? And what's the long?term
commitment to 3?4?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, you've got to base out of something. When you meet as a defense, you've got to have
kids in a room to meet. So ultimately you decide whether you're a 4?3 or a 3?4 based on how you meet.
He's correct, we're not in 3?4 as much as people think, but that's what our
personnel, that's what we
recruit to. We do that for a lot of reasons: It gives you ability to recruit
more linebackers, more skilled
players, so that allows us to do that. We don't always line up in a 3?4, we
have to line up in both. In today's
day and age, offenses force you to.

So our
reasoning for doing that is much, A, recruiting; B, gives us more skill players
and we can recruit
D?linemen that grow our outside linebackers that grow into D?linemen, which has
happened to a couple of
other guys. It's more about that, and we still think it's the best defense to
be in for two?back offenses.

Q. What's
the recruiting pitch to pass?rushing phenoms?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, you're going to play both 3?4 and you're going to play in the 4?3, if you
go down the NFL
ranks most of those teams that I see at the top of it, the Texans, the Ravens,
the Patriots, a lot of those
teams are 3?4 teams, and they play both.

Q. When you
look at everybody you lost last year, guys to the NFL, some of the challenges
you faced on
defense, how pleasing has this been, what you've been able to do to get back
here on this stage and the
variables that are involved in sort of overcoming some of those things
defensively?

KIRBY SMART:
I'll tell you, this group has probably been one of my most favorite to coach
since I've been at
Alabama because of the expectations. They didn't have bad expectations, but a
lot of the media, you
guys had bad expectations for this group. I never was worried about their competitive character.
Sure, we lost some good players. Coming over here I guess it was four or five
draft picks, whatever it
was, last year we lost off that team. But we had a lot of good players behind
those guys, and this group
to me had a little chip on their shoulder and felt slighted that people didn't
think they'd be good.

The
leadership of Damion and Nico and Dee and these guys kind of took over from the
Michigan game. We haven't
played great all the time, but we've played with great competitive character. I
mean, they have
competed hard. We've been behind at LSU, we've been behind against Georgia, we
lost to Texas A
& M but we were behind in that game and fought back. So every time these
defensive guys have been
challenged, they've responded.

Q. Talk
about being behind a couple times, how much of that was not being able to force turnovers?
You guys didn't get any against Texas A & M and only one against Georgia.
How important is it to get some
against Notre Dame.

KIRBY SMART:
It's huge to get turnovers, any game it is. I don't feel like we were behind because we
didn't get turnovers, we were behind because we didn't stop them, especially
the Texas A & M game and the
LSU game. We didn't stop them when we had to. We had some losses in the red
area that if we hold
them to field goals on 3rd down, we have a better chance. To hold them to three
instead of seven it's a
big difference.

But
obviously turnovers always play a great outcome in the game, and I think they
know that, we know that.
We're kind of the same. Our head coach is the same. Philosophically we both
agree that we're not
going to turn the ball over and beat ourselves.

Q. You
mentioned the red zone, and I think you guys lead the country in red zone
defense. What are the dos
and don'ts in the red zone as far as you're concerned? What are the keys to
being successful there?

KIRBY SMART:
I think it's a change in your style of play. I don't think enough people, and
Coach Saban does a
great job allowing us to practice red zone. It's kind of like anything, when
you've got a backstop
behind you, you can play a little more aggressive. They can't throw the ball
over your head. Only so far they
can throw at them. So you have to change the style of defense you play. We work
really hard on that each
year to be one of the top teams in the country in red zone, and if you're going
to do that, you're going
to have a chance to play good defense. We really emphasize that a lot.

So the dos
and don'ts for us is don't back up out of the end zone, because you ain't got
to defend behind it.

Q. It
probably feels like you get asked about this a lot but maybe it's because we
don't talk with you a ton.
But your name gets bandied about as a head?coaching candidate this time of
year. Can you talk about
what your goals are, and what's your criteria for leaving a nice job at Alabama
to be a head coach?

KIRBY SMART:
First off, I'd like to say, obviously all my time, emphasis and effort since
the last game has
been on this game since we knew we were playing Notre Dame. That's all I can
think about and all I want
to worry about is winning this game for these guys. Ultimately my goal is my
career is to be a head coach.
Where that is, I have no idea. It's not like I wake up every day trying to
leave Alabama. I have the
best non?head?coaching job in the country, period, because I've got a great
administration, we've got a great
facility. I want to be where I can win, and I know you can win at Alabama. I
think that's so important.

I'm now 37,
I forget how old I am sometimes, 36, 37, I think I just turned 37. I am so
worried about Notre
Dame, I don't know my age. I don't worry about where I'm going to be in three
years or ten years. I
think if you win, that takes care of itself, and I'm not in such a hurry to run
off and do anything that I don't have
a pressing issue. If I was 47, I might feel differently. But most important
thing to me right now is winning
championships and developing young men into better players and better people.

Q. Anytime
you interview for a job, do you benefit from that? Do you learn from each step
of that process?

KIRBY SMART:
I certainly think you do. I think the interview process is beneficial for you
because you find out
a lot more about the people you're talking to, and you also find out a lot more
about yourself and you get
better experience doing that. I certainly think it's a benefit. And Coach Saban
has been extremely
supportive of me in that process and has told me on a number of occasions that
he knows that I'm going to
have opportunities, and he's happy for me for those opportunities.

Q. I was
just wondering, for both guys actually, what is it like when you guys go good
on good in practice?
And how important is that for the development of a young defense like you were
talking about?

DAMION
SQUARE: I feel like we have one of the best offenses in the country, especially
up front with Barrett
Jones and D.J. Fluker and Chance Warmack. So to get that experience of going
against those guys and
cracking helmets against those guys, playing against that hard power run that
they have, and T.J. Yeldon and
Eddie Lacy, that's great experience for Saturday. It's kind of hard for any team
to match that on Saturdays
going against those big guys that we've got up front and the competitive
attitude that they've got every
day at practice.

KIRBY SMART:
I smile because I think about Damion for the last three years, four years,
going against Fluker
every day good on good. Damion does a great job, but I just cringe at the
thought of having to hammer
big Fluker every play. Those two have had some really -- they have good wars,
and they're really
spirited and in the right mindset. I'm not talking about talking trash or
fighting. They get after each other, and I
think that's what makes us who we are. I think that creates our identity by
going good on good quite a bit.

Q. Ed
Stinson is a hometown guy from Florida. Talk about what he's meant to the team
this year.

DAMION
SQUARE: Like Coach said, he's one of those guys that converted over to D?line
from playing
linebacker. Ed is one of those guys with a high motive and extremely athletic.
He's a fast guy, jump high, he's
very strong, got great size. He's one of those guys that's just a great
football player. I think Coach could
put Ed at safety and he'll play that with everything he's got. He's just a guy
that can do whatever you
ask of him. And I play with a lot of great guys, but very few guys that can do
anything that you can ask
of them on the football field. Some guys are limited to certain things, but Ed
is one of those guys,
whatever you ask him to do, he can do it. He has the speed to do it, he has the
strength to do it, he has the
mindset to do it. He just wants to be great and practice high tempo all the
time.

KIRBY SMART:
Every day we run sprints he's always in front of Damion on the D?line group, so
I know he can
run good. He can run like a linebacker. He does run well.

Q. Can you
talk about the development of Jesse Williams and the decision to change
positions with him
this year even though he's still just learning the game.

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, he's a unique player. I've coached however many years, 13, 14 years now, and never
been around a guy quite like Jesse because when he first got to us, there were things he didn't understand
about the game or more the American kids grew up saying, all right, what does
the flat mean?

He didn't
know the flat -- we said drop to the flat, he had no idea what that was, and
had to learn a lot of things. But
he always had great quickness and could really run fast and very strong,
obviously. So it's been a
unique experience for us to coach him.

As far as
moving positions, there's not a whole lot of difference in playing deadhead up
the tackle as opposed
to play deadhead up the center. It wasn't a big change for him. Obviously
there's a guy coming from
your left and right when you're inside, so he had to get used to reading blocks
and reading angles,
whereas when he was outside he just had it coming from one way.

But he's a
special talent, he's a unique player that we weren't quite used to having.

Q. This
question is for Coach Smart: You were with Nick Saban in Miami with the
Dolphins and in the NFL. How
closely do you guys run this Alabama program to the same program you had in the
NFL? And what are
some of the benefits of running an NFL?style program at the college level?

KIRBY SMART:
I think it helps you with the development of your players. I think in the NFL everybody
develops their players. In college it's not always that way, as far as the
number of reps you get in the
off?season, how many reps do you give your threes and fours in your training
camp, how many reps do you give
those guys. To me the development of the younger players, so that when you lose
five guys or six guys on
defense, you've got guys ready to replace those, and I think his focal point is
always, how are we going to
make ourselves better at every position, and he's always working towards that.

And I want
to say this: My stay down here was really great. I have a son, I've got twins
at home, one named
Weston, I named after where I lived in South Florida. He went yesterday to the
city limits and got his
picture taken right there, and he was really happy about that. He's now five
years old or fixing to be five years
old.

Q. Given
what you said about your aspirations in coaching, given what you said about
Alabama, would your
ideal situation, maybe your dream be to succeed Coach Saban at Alabama and
coach there some day?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, I'm like Coach Saban, I don't get into hypotheticals. That's completely a hypothetical.
I think Alabama is a special, special place, and it's obviously a great place
to coach. But as far as
anything outside of that, I'm just worried about this game and being successful
at Alabama.

Q. For Coach
Smart: What does a guy like Damion bring to the table on and off the field? And then for
Damion: What do you think you're going to remember most when you look back on
your career at Alabama?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, first off, Damion Square is a special player because he was one of the
first players to
come -- he came from Houston, Texas, and he had a lot of chances. He could have
gone anywhere he
wanted to go, and he chose Alabama over LSU. Everybody that offered him, he
chose to come to us.
I still remember Damion, we had a little Bama ballgame we call air ball, where
the kids run around and
throw the ball forwards, backwards. It's really like basketball on grass, and I
can remember sitting out,
and it seems like a long time ago, five years ago, he's out there running
around as an athletic, dominating
the game. That's a big body guy, and we knew right then this guy was a special
defensive lineman. He
has special talents to be able to run around like a skill player. And for him
to decide to come to Alabama
over all the choices he had, he was one of the first guys that knew, hey -- he
came when the program
wasn't as good, and that's a great commitment. He went through a really tough
knee injury his freshman
year, overcame that, and has become one of our best leaders we've ever had
here.

And the
players respond to him. I always say leadership is about how they respond to
you. Well, they respond
to Damion, and they respect the work that he's done.

DAMION
SQUARE: For me, just the development all around as a player, as a father, as a
son, as a man,
coming here to the university, they expect you to do things a certain way, and
they hold you accountable
for that at all times. And that's kind of how I live my life now. It's kind of
tough on my wife at home because
I am a straightforward guy when it comes to getting things done, because that's
how they handle me
and that's how I handle my home. And I think that's the best way to do it.

So just the
development all around, you know.

Q. Obviously
one of the big defensive plays that you made was CJ's tip in the Georgia game.
He said over
there they got four fingers on it. Can you just talk about what you had set up
for that play? And also, I know
you and your family and Coach Bobo's family go way back. Have you talked about
that game since?

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, I'll be honest, that was a really tough moment for me in coaching because Mike is
really my best friend, and we grew up together. To go up against each other it
was really a sick feeling
before the game because you knew somebody was going to be unhappy at the end of
it. And for it to end that
way was really hard. So we kind of had a special moment after the game, and got
to visit a little bit.

But CJ has
done that all his career. I remember his first freshman practice, we do the
freshman separate
than the older guys. The older guys we had ran a pressure where we brought two
guys to the running
back, and the older guys ran it, Donte, maybe Ro or -- maybe Ro was gone, Chris
Jordan, ran the same play
against the ones, and they didn't bat the ball down. CJ did it at the night
practice, same place, same script,
CJ jumps up as he's blitzing and batted the ball down. Just an instinctive,
really smart football play, and
from that point on, he's always had a knack, even in the LSU game there's a 3rd
down they were going to
convert, and he was dropping, and he kind of just batted the ball. He naturally
does a good job of that. He was
a really good basketball player in high school. He did the same thing in that
game.

Didn't
surprise me at all that he did it. What surprised me was Geno was supposed to
be blitzing with him, so
I always wonder to this day if Geno had blitzed, he probably would have batted
the ball down to the
ground, and there would have been another snap fact. So the fact he didn't come
and bat it down and they
caught the ball, it's a little bit of fate there.

Q. How did
you and Scott Cochran's families become so close? And also, what kind of effect
has he had on
the program?

KIRBY SMART:
Scott and I have been close since LSU, the year I spent there with Coach Saban, Scott was
there. But our wives both are raising three kids, and both our kids are kind of
the same age. So our families
mirror each other. So the wives end up spending a lot of time together, and as
anybody knows with
coaching, there's not a lot of time in season spent at the house, so they spend
a lot of time helping each other
out, and we've become really close through that.

Scott's
impact on this team has been tremendous. Scott does a great job. He always had
energy, enthusiasm,
and the players like him, the players respond to him, and he enjoys his work.
Anybody that enjoys their
work like he does, they become successful.

Q. Damion,
could you talk about just the effect that Cochran has had on the program.

DAMION
SQUARE: The energy that he has. He always says energy is a choice, and at first
I didn't feel
that way, but if he can come -- I've been here five years, and he hasn't missed
a day with that energy and
enthusiasm that he brings to the weight room and to the practice field every
day. And if he can do it, I
know I can do it. He's just an example of what we should be every day out on
the practice field, loving what
you do, loving your work and just coming to work.

Q. You've
retooled over the past three years. What's been your blueprint in putting a
defense back
together after having a great one? And what do you need to see out of a player,
out of his eyes that tells you
he's ready to take that step into that pivotal role?

KIRBY SMART:
The blueprint would be big, physical, stop?the?run, dominate line of scrimmage, very similar
to Notre Dame's defense, big linebackers, stop the run, force a team to be one?dimensional and try to
sufficient Kate from there. Try to create negative passing situations and loss
yardage plays.

That's the
blueprint, is getting big, physical defensive linemen that control the front
that allow you to special coverages on
the back end, that's kind of what we've always done, and tried to replace those
guys with guys like
them. So if you can recruit to that blueprint, you've got a chance.

As far as
what you see in a player's eyes, I think every player is different. I can't
look at a player and say, oh,
he's ready to play, because each player is different. I was the same way as a
player. What makes me
ready to play doesn't necessarily make you ready to play. So you get yourself
ready to play individually.
Whatever you have to do to be successful, but do that.

Q. I think
the three players that Barrett Jones has primarily faced in practice are
Marcell Dareus, Terrence
Cody and Jesse Williams. Damion, what's it like to face him in practice? And
Kirby, is Barrett at his best
when he's facing bigger defensive linemen?

DAMION
SQUARE: Barrett just has great technique. You can tell he's been coached by
great guys
previous, and had been coached by great coaches at the University of Alabama.
He can adjust. He can be an
aggressive guy and he can be a guy that's kind of passive and let you beat
yourself, and that's what's so
great about Barrett Jones. He plays the game with great technique. You can't
really find a flaw in his game,
and that's the reason why Coach can move him all around in front. You can put
him at center, put him at
guard, put him at tackle, is because he's been coached by great coaches. He
knows how to change his
game up. Some guys are one?dimensional, but Barrett is a guy whatever you need
to bring to the table at
that position, he can do that. You need him to be a great tackle, kick?stepping
or you can be a hard guard
on the line that's setting the D?linemen up front, being aggressive and moving
the three technique,
he's just a guy that can adjust to any situation, and that's what makes him so
great, and so aggravating
to go up against at practice.

KIRBY SMART:
He does a good job. To me he knows what he has to do to win the down, and he executes
that, whether it's a big, small, quick guy, he executes what he has to do to
prevent his guy from making the
play. At the end of the day, that's what you want your offensive linemen to do.

Q. For both
of you two: The perception is these games, these championship games, are won in the
trenches. How true is that? And how does this match?up set up for you guys?

KIRBY SMART:
I certainly think they're won in the trenches, and I think that's where they're
really dominant at.
I know I haven't seen their defensive front much, but that's what everybody
talks about, and I know their
offensive line has several guys that are going to be playing in the NFL. And
they do a really good job
with the run game. That's what people don't give them enough credit for to me
is their ability to double team
up, run the power game, very similar to our guys. Yeah, I
think it's won in the trenches. I think it always is and it always will be
because if you can make them
one?dimensional, you've got a shot.

DAMION
SQUARE: There's some games that you play and you feel like you have no control
over and the
trenches up front with guys running from sideline to sideline and things like
that. Whenever you play a game that
you've got a team that's coming downhill, and they're trying to play football
the way it's supposed to
be played with double teaming, the three technique, you feel like you have
control over the game. And with
me being a D?lineman I want the game to be played in the trenches. I want that
pressure on me,
because I feel like I can be big for my team in that situation.

Q. First as
a player, how involved do you get in the recruiting process with a kid who
everybody may like
athletically, but you see him and go, you know what, he's not necessarily for
us attitude?wise to what this
program has kind of been built on? And Coach, do you see it and how often do
you guys lose players or
say, this guy is just not for us?

KIRBY SMART:
Explain to me what you're asking again.

Q. In terms
of just the character aspect of it, you've had running backs where guys end up
maybe going
someplace else and be the guy --

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, we certainly have player descriptions, player profiles that we want, and
if guys don't
fit that certain description, they may be a five?star great player, and there
are examples of that this year
all over the country where everybody is like, why aren't y'all recruiting him?
Or he calls us and has great
interest, we're just not interested because we recruit to a certain standard.
We say we want the guy to be
this tall, this big. Does that mean there's not exceptions? Sure, there's
exceptions to the rule, but we don't
want a team full of exceptions. So we're trying to get six corners that are all
5'11" or bigger, we want
D?linemen that are all 6'2". There's criteria for those positions that we
want to recruit to. If they don't fit
those, we're not going to take a boat full of them. Will we take one every now
and then? Sure. Or it may be
a character reference, we are going to let this one ride. We've heard some
things I think
there's always that scenario you're talking about, and I think there's some
talented players out there
that we have not recruited that we may have been right on or wrong on, but you
have conviction and you make
a decision and you live with it.

DAMION
SQUARE: I mean, you want the program to benefit the player and you want the
player to benefit
the program. I think Coach Smart, you look at a player and you see if this
program is going to benefit him.
There's a bunch of guys that come on recruiting visits that are great players,
I've watched on rivals and
different websites and watched in the film room and say this guy can contribute
to our program in a major way,
but then you meet them and you don't quite know if the program is going to
benefit him. So it's a
two?way thing. The program has to benefit the player for him to develop, and
then the player has
to benefit the program for the program to develop. You've kind of got to meet
on both ends.

Q. Damion
and Kirby both: We assume because you've been here before that Alabama has an advantage,
in your mind what is that advantage? As you look back to being here when you
were younger, being here
for the first time, now that you're back and you know the routine, what is it
that is an advantage?

KIRBY SMART:
I think you've got to be real careful with that because you assume nothing when you come to
these games. You assume it may be your last time in your career, and every
chance is independent
of the previous. It's like the statistics class I had, when they flip the coin,
every time you flip it, if it's been
10 heads, there's no greater probability the next one is going to be tails.
It's 50/50 every time.

So there's
no guarantee that you're going to be back here, and you assume nothing.

You've got
to be careful about complacency, and that's what we've tried to emphasize to
this group is that, A,
are they hungrier than you? Because if they're hungrier that's a competitive
advantage. You better not
let anybody be hungrier than you. You've got to want it more than they want it,
and I think you see that in
bowl games across the country, is hey, teams that play with a chip on their
shoulder or have an edge, it
always helps. We're hungry, we want this game, we want this for this group, the
group that everybody
said couldn't do it. It's probably why more teams don't repeat.

DAMION
SQUARE: I think the only competitive advantage you get is on the practice field
and in the film
room, and that's week to week. This game is another game for us. We play and we
practice to be in this
game, and it's -- we're here, and we're going to come and play this game like
we show up and play on every
Saturday. We're going to come and we're going to take our coaches' plan and
we're going to try to execute
it to the best of our ability.

Competitive
advantage, you can get that by practicing great and looking at film and taking advantage of
this time that we had from the last game to this game to get some tendencies on
our opponent.

Q. Damion,
you told us the other day that you were recruited by Notre Dame. Tell us more
about that. How
seriously did you look at them? What did you like? And what did it come down
to? Neither Alabama nor Notre
Dame were world beaters at that time.

DAMION
SQUARE: Well, I had a family member that went to Notre Dame, so I went up to experience
the atmosphere. It's a great place with great tradition similar to Alabama. At
the time Charlie Weis was the
coach, and they had a great program going on at the university, I just felt
like Alabama was a better fit
for me. But Notre Dame is a great place. They have a lot of pride in what
they're trying to do up there, and
they've been trying to get to this point for a while, and they're here, and I'm
pretty sure that they're
going to try to come and take advantage of this opportunity.

Q. You
touched on it, but do you think enough fans and we the media realize when you
strip it all away, it is
about that box, it's about controlling that A and B gap, and I wonder, Damion,
if you could share a story with
DJ? Is there any good anecdote from going up against him so often?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, first of, I don't know how much the perception is that the game is won in
the trenches. I
do think that it is, but you could also argue that Texas A & M exploited us
in a different fashion than that.
At the end of the day, it was still their ability to run, whether it's
quarterback runs or scrambles or busted
plays. You've got to be careful that you don't make it all about one thing, but
that's where we're going to
start and that's where we start every game at is A to B gap.

DAMION
SQUARE: Like I said, it's awful tough to simulate a guy with that much mass and
that type of
attitude. Just practicing against that guy, I'm almost positive that I'm not
going to see a guy like him on
Saturdays. He's going to bring it. He's going to bring it every day. That's the
attitude that he has. He wants to win
in everything that he does, and with me, I have to take advantage of practicing
with that guy. I appreciate
him coming and bringing that energy because it wakes me up some days. It makes
me bring my best to
the practice field. DJ is a
fantastic player.

KIRBY SMART:
Very few guys I've been around like DJ that love practice. That guy loves to practice. He
is fired up about hitting you.

Q. Can you
give me a specific example of Nick Saban's attention to the smallest detail,
maybe getting
ready for this game? And also, do you think he's driven to be the greatest
coach in the history of this game?

KIRBY SMART:
Oh, there's no question. There is no question he is driven to be the greatest coach in the
game.

You've got
me on the specific detail. There are so many. He is very detail oriented. I
mean, down to the minute
of practice, down to the -- I mean, he wants every second of practice organized, every walk-through rep,
it doesn't matter if you're in special teams and you're doing walkthrough, he
wants it organized,
he wants to plan for it, he wants it on paper and he wants you to execute it. A
specific one, you've got
me on that, but there's a lot of them in the last seven, eight years that he's
done and he's harped on. And in
the end they make your overall program more successful because you don't leave any part of the program
uncovered.

Q. You were
asked earlier about the value of interviewing for other jobs. I know there are probably a
lot of people back home who wondered about a month ago what was the value of
you interviewing
with Auburn, and did they ever actually offer you the job?

KIRBY SMART:
Well, first thing, I respect the University of Auburn and the opportunity they
gave me to
interview and talk to them as far as all the other stuff, the most important
thing to us here is to focus on this game
and get it done. I thought the interview process went great. Found out things I
needed to know, and
I'm sure they found out things they needed to know. As far as any of the other
stuff, I'll just leave that
to us and them.

Q. A lot of
people are drawing parallels between Johnny Manziel and Everett Golson and comparing
how efficient they are at running the ball. Do you find those comparisons and
parallels to be true?

KIRBY SMART:
Sure. The guy is a very good athlete. He's got the ability to run the ball.
He's got extremely
great arm talent. He scrambles to throw, but is a willing runner we call it. So
he will run if he has to, but he
scrambles to throw the ball, find people open. He extends plays like we talked
about earlier. But there are a
lot of similarities between the two. Both of them are youthful, and sometimes
youth is a good thing. He
doesn't have a very long memory. He forgets it and he's right back to the next
play and will make another big
play. So there are a lot of similarities between the two.

Q. Could you
talk about the development of Dee Milliner, a guy from the beginning when he
first arrived to
now, to now is being projected as a first?round pick in the NFL Draft?

KIRBY SMART:
Yeah, Dee is another one of those kids that I was fortunate enough to be able
to help recruit
and I got to know his family well. His father played for my father in high
school, and Dee has developed.
He came early in the spring one year, he and John Fulton, and we knew right
away both were going to be
good players. Dee has gotten bigger, gotten stronger, gotten more physical.
He's been a joy to watch
grow, especially after I still have memories of the South Carolina game his
freshman year when he was
forced to start along with Dre, and South Carolina beat us up pretty good, and
Dee was out there the whole
game in foreign territory, tough environment to play in, and grew up a lot that
day and became a special
player for us.

Q. Nick
seems to have created a system within the system, particularly when it comes to
the mental side
of things. What kind of edge, particularly in a game like this, does that
provide? And how deep does he
go into the mental side of things?

KIRBY SMART:
He goes deep into the mental side. He spends as much time on that as he does defensively
now, and I think that is where he's grown as a coach, because I can remember
being at LSU, I didn't
remember the mental side being so great. And now six, seven years later, it's
extended so far. He really
believes in that, he believes in what you tell the players, he believes in the
angle of approach of each game being
different and getting their mindset right for the game. To me that's where he
has established himself as a
coach ahead of the curve because of his ability mentally to create an advantage
with his team.
Whatever the mindset is, whether it's physicality, whether it's execution,
whatever it is, he does a great job of
conveying that to the kids. And he makes us realize as coaches, it's not going
to be about what we
call, it's not going to be about what we rep, it's going to be about the
mindset in Damion Square's head that's
going to make a difference in this game.

Q. The
critical moments in the SEC title game when you came back against Georgia late
in the game, was
that an example of the mental toughness of Alabama?

KIRBY SMART:
No question it was. I mean, I was questioning it. There was a point where I was looking on
the defense on the sideline on the bench over there and we're down 11, and I
guess it was right after the
field goal block, but you're sitting there going, well, here we go. This is
another challenge of our competitive
character. Are we going to be able to get the stops and get the scores
necessary to bring it back? Those
kids, we challenge them every day now, so it's not they hadn't been challenged
when it comes up.
They've got to be mentally tough. Everybody is
doing that. It's the ways we do it that makes us different, I think. Every
coach will tell you, we
mentally train our kids, too. I just think we take it a step further and have
the capabilities to do that.

Q. Coach
Saban has talked in the past about dealing with mobile quarterbacks and Denard Robinson is
one that comes to mind. Talks about disciplined pass rush, pinch the pocket
without giving up the run
lane. When you see Golson, do you see a guy you might want to approach the same
way?

KIRBY SMART:
Sure. You can't give the guy the ability to run all around and make plays, yet that's what
he's going to do, so it's who's got the greater will to contain and keep him in
the pocket versus him, hey,
aborting and going outside the pocket. So it's a tough thing. The guy is
going to scramble. He's going to be a better, quicker athlete than the people
we have up front, if
they can play with pass?rush discipline, they're going to give us an
opportunity to affect him with coverage or
affect him with pressure. That's what we are always trying to do, affect the
quarterback in some kind of
way. But he's good at breaking it.

DAMION
SQUARE: Those type of players have always been unique at the quarterback
position. It creates
another dynamic for your offense. Like I said, the offensive coordinator
doesn't have to think as much about
the plays that he's calling. That guy is going to extend and make things
happen. He's going to make a
defensive back break coverage and things like that. Whenever you're playing
against a guy that can do that
with his feet, it's always detrimental to a defense. It's another aspect that
you have to practice.
You have to get a guy in practice that can simulate what that guy does on the
field. You can't have regular
practice like you're going against a prostyle quarterback, when you're going
against a guy that can extend.
Luckily we have a guy like Blake Sims that can simulate that in practice.
Whenever you have a guy like
that back there it's great for the offense, and it's something that we have to
worry about as a defense.

Q. How much
has it prepared you working under Nick down the road when you want to be a head coach versus
having gone somewhere the way he positions and the way he challenges you?

KIRBY SMART:
I think it's a great point. To me personally, my development to become a head coach will
be much better working for Coach Saban than necessarily going somewhere else
because you learn every
day that you're in there. As a teacher, and I can tell you even back to the
Georgia game, halftime, we
screwed it up. Hey, he admitted we should have called timeout to create an
advantage to score in the
end, but he always uses that to teach us. He doesn't use it just for himself.
Every day we do two-minute
against each other, we come in, talk about clock management, what could we have
done here? What
should we have done there? He's questioning not only us why we did this in this
situation, but he questions
himself. He does a great job of quality control of the entire organization,
what could we have done
differently, and I think sometimes when you go other places that don't have the
same support structure,
you don't get those -- you don't get that same experience. The experience that
I've been able to gain through
being with Coach is hey, this is how you run a major program, this is the way
you do it and this is the way
you question every part of your organization, therefore making it better. So I
think his ability to run that
program is really good.

CB
Dee Milliner

On
Everett Golson

"He's a
great quarterback. He makes plays last longer by using his legs. Any time you've
got a dual-threat quarterback that can run
and pass the ball like he does, they can be a challenge at any time because he
can make plays last longer with
his legs. If he gets flushed out of the pocket he can create plays by running
or he can look down field to throw the
ball."

On
Kirby Smart

"Its just
the different schemes and things that he does against other teams, the way he
looks at film and the way he goes about
picking out plays to stop whatever they are doing. Players on the team are
buying in on what he's trying to teach us and
just going out there and executing the plan that he has each week."

On
how it feels to finally get back to football

"It seems
like we haven't played football in a really long time. We're just happy to be
in Miami, it's a great city. We're out of the
cold in Alabama; it's kind of hot down here. We're just happy to be back in the
championship and to compete and come out
on top."

DB
Robert Lester

On
practicing in South Florida

"I think by
being outside here – we actually haven't seen the sun in a while – that helps
us get into the game environment
and is good for our bodies to adjust to the weather."

On
experience of playing in another BCS National Championship

"It is a
great environment being in Miami to play for a national championship. It is a
great opportunity to play against a great team,
I don't think it gets any better than this."

On
this being his last game

"Of course
it is going to stink leaving Alabama, it's all that I have really known. I have
been with these guys for five years,
wearing crimson and white for five years. To get into any other color is going
to be different."

On
the weather in South Florida

"The
humidity was a little bit of a shock, but we were ready for it and adjusted. I
am glad we are able to get some practices
down here and get used to the weather. However, we are used to the heat from
the Tuscaloosa in the summer and
the beginning of the season. We'll be able to adjust quickly playing here in
this climate."

On
the game plan

"We are
going to go into this game with the same goals we have had all season – stop
the run and defend the pass. They are
very talented with a mobile quarterback, great receivers and running backs."

On
Notre Dame QB Everett Golson

"[Everett]
Golson is a very mobile quarterback and we have to be aware of that. He can
extend plays and we definitely want to
limit that since big plays can happen. We'll have to stay disciplined on
defense."

On
head coach Nick Saban

"You
definitely have to have thick-skin, but it is all a part of his plan. He wants
to make you into the best player you can be. We
have faced a lot of adversity with other team's fans causing distractions, but
he keeps us focused. He is hard on us,
but it is all for the good. Coach basically turns boys into men. He is on us
about being on-time, details and the little
things. By paying attention to the little things, it can bring you a long way
in life."

On
facing the hurry-up offense

"We have
faced that several times this year and we will be prepared for it. You have to
stay disciplined and get the call and get
ready to go quickly."

LB
C.J. Mosley

On
preparing for Notre Dame rather than LSU for the National Championship

"It is
different. That is one of the main things; it's a team we haven't faced before
so it will be a new atmosphere [and] a new team.
It's obviously something we have to adjust to. We've been practicing in the
cold and in the rain back in Tuscaloosa
so it's important to get the weather down and [get used to] playing in the
heat."

On
Notre Dame QB Everett Golson

"He's a
great scramble quarterback [and] he's a great athlete so we have to do our best
to try and maintain him. We have to do
[what we can to] stop him from making the plays that he can make. He's a great
player so like Johnny [Manziel] he's
going to make the plays that he's going to make, but we just have to do our
best to contain him."

On
how this defense compares to other ones he's been a part of

"Each
defense had some great things that they had, but you can't really compare each
defense as the same. But I think we're
up there as far as this year."

On
playing with some young guys on the defense

"They
are just stepping up when they have to. They have been consistent throughout
the whole year. Not only little things like
not letting the outside clutter get in their head, but also playing to the
Alabama standard."

On
being the favorite heading into the National Championship

"It's a
championship game so being the spread or being the underdog really doesn't
matter. Both teams are going to give it all
they got [and] it's the last game for some of these players so everybody is
going to lay it all on the line."

LB
Nico Johnson-Alabama

On
third time in national championship…

"It's a
little bit different, different team. The focus is so important for this team
[more] than any other team I've been
on. Right now we're just enjoying the time, having fun with what we're doing,
and practicing hard every day."

On
adjusting to Everett Golston…

"I don't
think it puts pressure on us; he's a good player. But I think by playing the
players we played throughout
the year has prepared us for a player like him. We just know that we have to do
our job as far as the front
seven even more against a player like him. I think the last player we played
similar was Manziel and
everybody knows what happen in that game. We just have to try to keep him in
the pocket more, try to make him
less comfortable, and get at them the best we can."

Comparing
Golston and Eifert…

Similar just
running, and using is speed a lot. They're both good athletes. We're going to
have to be on our P's and Q's
even more. He's able to be a pocket passer and pull it out and run it and can
hurt you in both ways we're
just going to have to be on it.

On
Tyler Eifert…

"I don't
think we have [seen anyone like him]; he has size and speed at the same time.
So we're going to have to be
on our P's and Q's, technique, when we're guarding him, making sure we're not
too high or too low on him.
We're just going to have to play physical football throughout for 60 minutes."

On
adjusting to Eifert's position switches…

"Just paying
attention to detail and watching a lot of film because if you don't like you
said yourself, they move him
around a lot and if you don't watch a lot of film and pay attention to detail
that's where he's at his best."

On
Nick Saban…

"People
think coach is an uptight person or something. When it's business time, it's
business time, we respect that
about him. When it's joking around time he jokes around a lot with us, all the
time, especially in practice. We
have fun doing what we do. He just expects a lot out of us. Coming here to ‘Bama
as a freshman, he's
not going to coach you as a freshman or sophomore you are, he's going to coach
you to the junior or
senior you're going to be down the line. That's what makes us year in and year
out be so good because we
respect that and we understand that and we respond the right way to that. He's
a laid back coach to me
[and] this is my fourth year with him. [Coach Saban tells jokes] all the time."

On
2010 season lessons and focus of this season…

"That we
cannot worry about all the external factors; the only thing we can worry about
is what we do week in and
week out. And we kind of understood that throughout the year, we're not trying
to repeat or anything
like that. We're just trying to go out and whoever we're playing that week, we're
trying to dominate them for 60
minutes. I think this is the best we've done since I've been here. We've
refocused ourselves and
understand there's room for improvement week in and week out and we just want
to get better. We still feel like we
haven't played that complete 60 minute game where we've actually played well
throughout the whole game.
It comes down to that fourth quarter where we've got to push through and get
that win. We're still searching for that
complete 60 minutes and hopefully it's this game."\